I think sceptics are mostly unimpressed with the lack of global temperature increase for well over a decade yet ‘forcing’ is now at unprecedented levels. The other thing that annoys them is when Believers point to things that are not (yet) outside the range of natural variability yet claim that they are.

“everyone knows that the Arctic freezes over during the winter. It also shrinks during the summer.”

Ill Wind Blowing, well that makes one of you that admits to understanding it.

Forget using the word ‘everyone’, because the way y’all mix and match facts and fiction leaves the uneducated masses thinking the arctic is continually thawing and that sea-ice is connected to sea-level. You know its true, and you are as comfortable with this confusion as is Joe Romm. It’s for the greater good and all.

Steve Goddard,if you not already know about it.Massive falsifier found:

“An important new paper published today in Global and Planetary Change finds that changes in CO2 follow rather than lead global air surface temperature and that “CO2 released from use of fossil fuels have little influence on the observed changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2” The paper finds the “overall global temperature change sequence of events appears to be from:
1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to 3) the lower troposphere,” in other words, the opposite of claims by global warming alarmists that CO2 in the atmosphere drives land and ocean temperatures. Instead, just as in the ice cores, CO2 levels are found to be a lagging effect ocean warming, not significantly related to man-made emissions, and not the driver of warming. Prior research has shown infrared radiation from greenhouse gases is incapable of warming the oceans, only shortwave radiation from the Sun is capable of penetrating and heating the oceans and thereby driving global surface temperatures.” – Hockeyshtick

“Using data series on atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperatures we investigate the phase relation (leads/lags) between these for the period January 1980 to December 2011. Ice cores show atmospheric CO2 variations to lag behind atmospheric temperature changes on a century to millennium scale, but modern temperature is expected to lag changes in atmospheric CO2 “

It pretty much confirms what the minority have been saying for years, CO2 is released by the ocean when it warms. Also says only the sun can heat water, GHGs produce infrared which isn’t strong enough. Only just read that minutes ago, pretty much an alibi I’d say.

As far as I can tell, Arctic Sea Ice has hit a new record low according to DMI, NORSEX, and JAXA, but this has nothing to do with AGW, and everything to do with the natural cycle of the AMO, which we are currently in the warm cycle. Arctic summer sea ice will not begin a significant recovery until the AMO turns cold like it did in the 1960s and 70s, until then, expect more very low years of summer ice to come, and we know the warmists will use the declining summer sea ice as propaganda for the AGW lie.

It will be very interesting to watch the next several years in arctic sea ice, because when the AMO cools, and if we get a positive response in arctic sea ice, that will completely put to rest any argument that AGW has a significant role in arctic sea ice.

AMO is a factor, but anthropogenic forcing is likely a bigger one. From a recent paper:

“The method used here shows that for the period 1979–2010, 0.5–3.1%/decade of the observed decline of 10.1%/decade is associated with the natural cycle of the AMO, consistent with Kay et al (2011). During this period the AMO has moved from a negative phase, associated with anomalously cold North Atlantic SSTs, to a positive phase, associated with anomalously warm SSTs. The effect of the AMO over the extended observational period 1953–2010 is much smaller since the record both begins and ends in a negative AMO state. This suggests that despite increased observational uncertainty in the pre-satellite era, the trend in SIE over this longer period is more likely to be representative of the anthropogenically forced component.”

Don Sutherland , it is the same old tired stuff. Start your time period when ice is at it’s greatest extent in many years and then act surprised when the extent drops . Why not start your time period thirty years earlier and see what kind of trend you get from two thirty year cycles ? Yeah , but that kind of thinking doesn’t cause alarm so we will not hear that from you . Every idea you warmists have promoted to try and prove your agw has been debunked and you warmists are the only ones that don’t see it . There is something dysfunctional about that . If you were really interested in science you would study the trends for one hundred and twenty years . But hey , we all know that you can’t alarm anyone with the truth about temperature and trends .

Don , you have to quote a more reliable source than something from the ipcc as they have a very poor reputation as champions of science . They even accept papers from the likes of greenpeace and the wwf and in fact any kook that says something that sounds like it might support agw . And don’t bother to quote mann or hansen or trenberth or muller or etc etc . Your list of reliable scientists who support the agw theme is shrinking .

The actual data for the Northern Hemisphere March and September ice extent originates from the Hadley Centre Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature dataset. It does not originate from an activist organization.

Well Don , I note that the majority of the smoothed data given is from the period 1900 to 2010 or so and that the extent given to the pre satellite era is quite high especially in the data pre 1900 . So we are comparing somewhat accurate satellite data to what ? I do realize I am the one who brought up the idea of looking at a longer time period than you mentioned and admit I am surprized at the trend presented . It does cause me discomfort as now I have to spend time looking at Rayner 2003 , Vinje 2001 , Polyckov 2003 A serious flaw in the paper appears when in deeper reading I find they turn to mann for their direction on smoothing and end treatment . I accept nothing that person says as truth , based on my perception of his manipulation of data to achieve his hockey stick graph that has been widely hammered by intelligent commenters . Further reading showed that the authors utilized modeling to achieve the graph we see , with all the smoothing of trends and adjustments required to get the graph to the point we see . One thing not in dispute is the fact that the paper dealing with the 1979 to 2010 portion does start at a known high point in ice extent as satellite data available before 1979 accurately portrays the lower extent in the early seventies showing that 1979 was a high point . Don , I concede your take on the paper as linked to is correct in that it portrays a declining trend for all of its data for 150 years and some of its’ data for 110 years . As to what the paper demonstrates I would say it shows the effects of natural variation of climate . I am aware of the fact that the Vikings established homes on Greenland that would not be viable today and that considerable melting would have to occur to equal those days . Will that melting occur ? My sceptical view is due primarily to the fact that several high placed scientists in positions of power have obviously been cherry picking data that is not in agreement with natural observations . It also stems from the fact that CO2 as the cause of any observable warming is simply someones unsubstantiated theory . With CO2 steadily rising the warmists would have us believe that the heat they can’t find is hidden somewhere or masked by pollutants of one type or other . They claim tropical hotspots and then buried in the ocean and are clearly grasping at something to hang the agw hat on . We have just observed the wild screaming over the weak in wind power hurricane that is causing so much misery with it’s moisture , and the drought that stuck the midwest this summer . Well Don , I havn’t changed my opinion on agw but I do concede your take that the paper you linked to shows a declining trend is correct .

To be sure, I am not expecting or assuming one will change his/her views on AGW. The willingness to consider what’s being published and to evaluate it is commendable. This paper’s estimate for the possible anthropogenic forcing is but one estimate. There’s still a lot of work being done to better measure the variables driving the declining summer ice extent. I read in National Geographic that Dr. Stroeve has just come out with a paper that may weigh in on the anthropogencially-forced component, but haven’t had a chance to read the actual paper, yet.

Finally, at this point in time, the argument concerning an AGW connection to hurricanes is tenuous. I don’t believe any possible AGW impact can be distinguished from internal variability at this time. Certainly, I haven’t seen any literature that makes a decisive case on that matter.

Wow,
Steve i did not expect your split brain to be so profoundly doubling down on the arctic ice after being so thoroughly humiliated (if one bothers to look at your posts this summer).
MY after seeing how you operate after 3 years,how could I have not realized you would go over the edge. Please post all those crazy alarmist arctic experts who predicted the ice would not refreeze this winter. that will cement your case!
And I love Eric’s whole AMO thing. Eric could you please show me all your posts where you took Steve and all the other deniers to task for not mentioning this novel theory over the last 5 years or so.
BTW is your thousand dollar bet still available? I will still offer you my Houston Astros bet, even though they have ben mathematically eliminated

Wow Tony , do you understand AMO and PDO ? I’m thinking the patterns might be a better fit to the trends than anything the warmists have offered . I mean you have to admit the modeling done by the agw camp has a very poor track record . The answers one way or another should start showing up in a very few years , like three or four I think . Although Eric and Joe see the possibility of more like seven or eight from the statements I have read on when the AMO will flip . I’m curious if you are making any short term predictions about climate trends ? By short term I mean two to four years . I note that Joe Bastardi backs his rehtoric with weather pattern predictions going out as much as three years and I am curious to compare predictions to outcome .

John, please link to all the skeptics that have been talking about the arctic meltdown this year due to this obvious connection that you and Eric are so familiar with.
Have you READ Bastardi’s predictions, OR WUWT’s OR Steve back in the days before he knew he would get totally burned by making them? They have been as far off as the most extreme alarmist predictions in the wrong direction.
My predictions have been woefully conservative. I predicted 4.9 this year in june and 4.4 in August. My record was HORRIBLE for predicting this year.
I don’t imagine next year will be as low as this year, but it will depend on what happens this winter. If there is an el niño and other factors conspire to have a low maximum, I think it will likely go below 2007, and i doubt it will go much above that in the next few years. in the mid term I expect that SIE will go below this year as volume continues to decrease and that we will start seeing what could be considered ice free arctic summers in the next 10 years. Which is DECADES before the evil IPCC’s assessment.

Steve,
funny, I assumed you would have access to your SIE predictions. If you have trouble finding them, I will be happy to try and google them for you. Here I found one on that scurrilous site called WUWT. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/prediction-arctic-ice-will-continue-to-recover-this-summer/ “Steven Goddard writes below that he agrees with the prediction I made in late 2009 that we’d see another 500,000 km2 of Arctic sea ice recovery in 2010″. That idiot Anthony obviously got it the OPPOSITE, because SIE was almost exactly 500K LOWER in 2010 than 2009. At least according to your favorite source JAXA 2010 =4813594 and 2009 = 5249844. No WONDER you jumped ship from that liars libelous website.
Obviously Anthony refused to Listen to Eric and his pleas for skeptics to consider the AMO. Funny I don’t see Eric commenting on that post about this obvious scientific truth.
”
Why don’t you post your predictions and show how they relate to the actual minimum SIE? I do remember you sayingat some point that you would no longer make them because it was too dependent on weather. Do you think it was just weather that has caused he recent death spiral, and natural variation will cause next years SIE to be clioser to the 1980’s mean, or are you now a convert to the worshippers of AMO?

Steve,
I forgot you can’t read my posts. Who should I direct them to o they can read them to you. If you actually ReAD my comment you will notivce that I credit Anthony with that quote. However, for some reason i don’t see your comment expressing your outrage at his atributing to you what he says you said.
I will back you up one hundred percent in calling out that , as you say, “Douche bag” Anthony. Imagine him lying about you saying you agreed with his prediction! How low will those commie alarmists go in trying to defame you.
So now you can go ahead and post your ACTUAL predictions and how they relate to the JAXA minimum for that year. You know the ones you made at the beginning of the melt season, as well as the adjustments you made as it got closer to the SIE minimum

Hey Tony , I do try to figure out the why of the ice extent predictions of others simply as a curiousity . I myself will make no predictions on ice extent as I know from the history books that ice extent has wildly fluctuated over time . I spent more time in study hall reading about the vikings and the romans and Hannible crossing the alps and all the other exciting events in history than I did studying any of the assigned tasks . So when the talk about CO2 causing the arctic ice extent to drop I instantly wondered what the CO2 levels were in the viking days what with no or atleast only miniscule amounts of petroleum combustion going on . (Before anyone tells me when the gasoline engine was invented I mean maybe burning tar pits or something on that order.) That was one of things that made me suspicous of the agw scam . So anyway I would say it is a mistake to attempt to hang agw theory on something that can be easily explained by natural variability.

John,
John,
while I am glad you did not waste study hall, your high school conclusions about vikings and climate might actually have been considered by people who have spent years devoting their lives to that study. What do they say about the degree of natural variation and when in the past we have had a loss of 3-4 million K2 of arctic sea ice in 30 years as the norm due to natural variation?
Are you part of the new church of AMO, that none of the skeptics were discussing back in the “arctic ice is recovering” dark ages of skeptic blogging a couple of years ago. I bet it will be easy to find new recruits now that it looks like there is very little summer ice to float that ship on any more,
And you are fine with the 4 or five years of similar SIE minimums to 2007 and 2012?
Just between friends what will be the new fall back position if SIE gets significantly less than this year in 4 years time? I want to say i was there at the beginning, since I was so late picking up on the natural variation explains anything I am ever wrong about explanation.

Tony a lot of people in this field are a lot more stupid than you are assuming they are. I doubt very much many ‘climate scientists’ study historical records on the Vikings for example. My experience has been that they are grossly ignorant of such topics of study. (The common attitude repeated hear by many warmists is that historical information is worthless because it is not ‘scientific’ – whatever that means.)

It took me several years to work out how ignorant many of the experts actually are. At some stage, if you’ve got average intelligence or better, you will come to similar conclusions.

Say Tony , I was off on another site and didn’t see when you posted again . I don’t see anything that refutes natural variation and natural observations trump all as far as I see it . I realize that some observations are merely regional and realize that looking at all regions with available reliable data is important . But on another note I see you are particularly unhappy with Anthony Watts’ site and yet I have learned much there and check it often. Recently there were some good discussions of the fairly new USCRN data and I regularly read interesting studies . All of this is an on going process and I think we need to look at all the new revelations that are occurring . I really doubt I will be persuaded to accept the agw theme as there is just too much evidence against it . I have no agenda I am chasing I simply see no reason to accept this idea because it flies in the face of what I perceive as common sense . You nor anyone else can readily explain away the past and I think we will see cycles as long as life here continues . Some cycles might be on an ice age scale and others on short term variations but I have seen nothing to justify spending our hard earned tax revenue on . Why don’t we just wait out the supposed warming trend and see ? Do you really believe that spending vast portions of the GNP will change the climate ? I think all it will do is enrich the charalatans that are earning their living promoting it . There is no reasonable amount of money that we can spend that will change the temperature .1 of a degree .